Tag Archives: paranoia

Horrifying story at the poker table last night: “I went into the insurance office to pay my bill yesterday. They don’t accept cash. They said it was for their employee’s safety. Really? Because who robs a Geiko storefront. I held up a twenty and pointed out that it announced that it was ‘legal tender for all debts, public and private’. Blank stare. Sir, we can’t accept cash.”

A little about me; I was that guy that specifically paid cash for everything for years. If I couldn’t afford it, I didn’t need it. I threw my drivers license into the microwave straight away once they started with that magnetic strip nonsense because, fuck you – work for it. I had several routes I drove home and used them randomly. You either understand the logic in that or this whole paragraph flew right past you. I *just* started surrendering to the idea that I needed to pay attention to this credit score bullshit because I’ll need it if I want to execute my master plan of a northwest 4D compound/retirement community. I know, I know. It’s grandiose. But it’s what’s in my head. My point is that I’ve spent much of my younger life taking pains to not be easily, conveniently tracked. I’m just an old peckerwood like that.
The horror of “not accepting cash as a matter of policy” struck me with the same gut punch as the first time a movie theater dared to show me a fucking Coke ad before the trailers. I knew it was the beginning of the end of TV-free theaters. They were being gentle with the first thrust into my movie going ass before it was going to be an expected part of our date.
I feel the same way about cashless society. Except this is much, much worse. This is the final, convenience providing removal of any illusion of privacy I’ve been coddling over the last few years. Without the ability to pay cash as I move about my life, that microchip my crazy Obama Death Camp friends are always railing about is utterly unnecessary.
I’ve often semi-joked that Facebook was Big Brother with an emoji smile, encouraging all of us to gleefully vomit out our whereabouts and personal information for “likes” without a second thought. Metaphorically, the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing us He wasn’t there. My debit/credit card is simply the next inevitable, easy to use step in my cheerfully surrendered freedoms.
It’s August! The 2016 Tinfoil Hats should be in the showroom any day now!

Much shouting happens over guns every time something big hits the news. But guns aren’t the issue – even as they are obviously the issue. Gun control won’t work simply because we aren’t Australia. We’re America, with 88.6 guns for every 100 citizens per capita. No one. And I mean no one is going to take them away. It’s just reality. In fact given the overall psychic state of America’s emotional and mental health they’re increasingly seen as an answer by a public slowly drowning in debt, poverty, fiscal disparity, fraudulent government, a quiet dread that their retirement plan will consist of moving in with their kids or robbing a liquor store so they can spend their golden years at scenic San Quentin By the Sea, with a media that daily, almost gleefully points to how “they” are coming to take what little resources we have away. We’re all scared shitless and pole-vaulting over mouse turds. It’s not that bad. At least not where you’re being told to look.

When Stef and I left New Orleans we felt a tension building around us. Something nefarious shifted in the feel of our neighborhood. Two weeks before we packed up to go, a mother’s day parade got shot up 6 blocks from our house in broad daylight. A couple of weeks before that a neighbor stepped off his porch and fired rounds at a guy who’d been trying to break in. A week before that a guy got robbed at gun point a block up across from the Ruby Slipper and it didn’t work out the way the robber planned. Since then things have gotten worse. The Quarter has seen such an uptick in violence that Quarter merchants have banded together for security.
Here’s why it’s gotten worse; New Orleans is a beautiful, eccentric, mess of a second world city. That said, there was always a strong sense that we’re all in it together. Hurricanes happened no matter which neighborhood you lived in. Entergy loses power for days at a time whether you live uptown or in the 7th ward. Everyone gets to boil their water a few times a year for several days at a time because the pumps backed up sewage into the municipal water. Everyone suffers the heat and humidity. Everyone gets rained on. Everyone relishes in it’s music, food, corruption, and colorful characters. No one’s immune. That’s what made it’s gumbo work. It was unspoken and completely understood.
Only now gentrification is pushing the poor out of traditionally lower middle to poor neighborhoods. Pushing them further out of their city. That camaraderie is being replaced with “Fuck you, we aint in this together no more. Gimme your damn wallet.”

That little story was okay as long as it was happening somewhere else. Not affecting my quiet little middle-class life. Let the poor brown people tear at each other far away on the news. But that’s not how it is anymore. The middle-class is feeling just as shut out and disenfranchised as the poor and brown have always felt. And we’re being told to blame the poor and the brown for it. But by all means PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!

It’s happening everywhere. Here in the bay area it’s becoming less and less possible to live if you don’t work in tech with a double income. Hell, if my father wasn’t a smart guy back in the 70’s and made it possible for me to own a house, my wife and I would’ve been forced to leave awhile ago. We barely live month to month as it is. Our answer is to hang in and hang on as long as possible and in the meantime practice that “we’re all in it together” mentality. All the things we do here at the house are a part of that belief. We help. We ask for help. We share. I was raised that way. A part of me scratches my head and wonders why everyone doesn’t do just that too. Because opening our house fosters a small town mentality where people feel safe. And it enriches the fuck out of us to do it. Love and service baby, love and service.
We’re in it together here. I own 5 firearms. The thought of giving them back is ridiculous. I’m not worried about poor people robbing me. They’re in it together, just like me. We all keep this sanctuary afloat. I worry about the people telling me I need to worry about my neighbors. And how easily Americans buy that narrative.